If Václav Havel needs inspiration for a new play, he could do worse than study the political farce that has marked the opening days of his country's first attempt to chair the European Union.

First, an official spokesman for the Czech Republic deems Israel's slaughter of Gazan civilians an act of self-defence. Next, the statement has to be retracted when it fails to chime with the message from Paris, which has reluctantly ceded the EU's presidency to Prague. And then an aristocrat fond of bow ties (Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg) leads a mission aimed at brokering a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. The snag is that "peace" has to be achieved without actually talking to Hamas because it has been designated a terrorist organisation.

I'm sure that thinktanks will be publishing pamphlets in the coming weeks that accuse the Czechs of damaging the EU's credibility. None the less, Prague's patent bias towards Israel is consistent with both its own foreign policy and the direction in which the union has been heading for some time.

A museum in Prague launched an exhibition a few years ago detailing how weapons made in Czechoslovakia assisted Israel's "war of independence" in 1948. Known as the "nakbah" or catastrophe to Palestinians, this involved the systematic destruction of Arab villages, with vast numbers of the refugees uprooted fleeing to Gaza.

As the country prepared for EU membership in 2004, Czech diplomats openly bragged of how they were continuing to arm Israel. In that year, the Czech Republic exported a Mi 24D helicopter to Israel. Fans of military porn, meanwhile, can marvel at videos on YouTube demonstrating the prowess of the Czech-designed Tatra trucks used by the Israeli army.

The Czechs' steadfast support for Israel sits uncomfortably with their apparently stout defence of human rights elsewhere. Invoking powerful historical memories from their own country, Czech ministers have demanded that the EU should support dissidents in Cuba. Yet they have failed to create a similar ruckus over how Israel detains school-leavers who resist military service or has denied journalists access to Gaza.

It would be wrong to chide the Czechs in isolation. All 27 EU governments agreed in December that their relations with Israel should be bolstered, ignoring a call from Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, to hold off on doing so until there was a freeze on settlements in the occupied territories. As a result of this decision, Israel could soon be offered the status of "privileged partner", allowing it take part in almost every EU programme open to countries that have not formally joined the union.

Even before its invasion of Gaza, there was no shortage of reasons why Israel should not have been rewarded in this way – but now?